The search for a cure

If you ask someone born after World War II about sulfa drugs, you'll likely get a blank stare. Ask the same question of someone born before the war, however, and it's a different story. That's because while the reign of sulfanilamide and its numerous variants was brief a mere decade before other, more effective drugs emerged it changed the world in a way no one then alive will ever forget. As...

Out of thin air

Many discoveries and inventions are touted as history - changing. But as Thomas Hager admirably proves in his new book, The Alchemy of Air, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch not only changed history, they made much of recent human history possible. As Hager solemnly notes in his introduction, "the discovery described in this book is keeping alive nearly half the people on earth." That...